500 mln Mistake, Worst January and Surprise from the US

Since February 2020, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond has hit new highs. On the one hand, the safe haven assets exit continues. On the other hand, an alternative to buying stocks at insane prices by purchasing risk-free assets with a profitability many times higher than it was a few months ago is becoming more obvious. It may well be the reason for a correction in very overbought and overvalued stock markets.

But the US stock market isn’t the main loser of yesterday—its participants are. Citibank made one of the most expensive mistakes in history. It sent a hundred times that amount instead of $8 mln (total, the bank accidentally sent $900 mln). A part of this erroneous transfer was returned to the bank, but about 500 million haven’t been returned, yet. In August, Citibank filed a lawsuit to recover its funds, but yesterday the court was known not to support the side of the company, so the bank is in trouble now.

But the holiday was on the streets of the United States yesterday. This refers to the data on retail sales for January, which turned out to be much better than forecasted. Considering that January was the peak month in terms of the pandemic, the followers of the fast recovery sect after such data have increased significantly.

However, there are still plenty of reasons for concern. According to the latest information, European automakers sold 26% fewer cars in January:

• Registrations of the Volkswagen Group, the region’s top-selling automaker, fell by 28%
  
• The VW brand dropped by 32%
  
• Audi by 31%
  
• Seat by 27%, and
  
• Skoda by 21%.
  

As a result, January 2021 became the worst month in the European automotive market history. So, everything isn’t so simple in terms of the economic recovery speed.